Chapter 9
Nicky
“Up!”
I am barely awake when Fescue walks into the bedroom hitting a button that makes the many windows surrounding the bed un-dim and letting in the morning rays.
I come to full consciousness very quickly as I realize I am naked underneath the sheets and this man is basically a stranger. The movement makes my ass ache inside and out instantly. This is a very vulnerable way to wake up, and when I look over at the other side of the bed, Rex is not there.
Fescue looks different in the brilliant fresh light of day while invading my personal privacy.
He’s in his forties, I would guess. His hair is dark but graying at the temples, and he has the sort of face that nature intended to imply he is inherently better than other people.
Whoever this guy is, he seems to think he belongs in this room with me.
He shows no hesitancy in coming over and trying to chase me out of bed.
I pull the blankets up to my chin and growl at him, physically emitting a ferocious sound that is much more animalistic than any I have made in the past. I might be losing control of the beast inside me.
This man better hope I don’t lose it on him.
When I don’t get up immediately, he moves on. “You need to get up and shower,” he says. “This room smells like a brothel.”
“Maybe. But it’s our brothel, not yours. Who the hell are you? What are you doing? Where is Rex?”
“Mister Regent is busy with the many affairs of his pack business,” the man says, going to a closet that is recessed in the wall panels. I’m not sure if I am in a bedroom or an evil lair. Everything here is so perfectly engineered. I’m jealous.
Then I remember that technically, though it absolutely does not feel like it whatsoever, this is mine too, now. I’m the alpha’s mate. Which means that is my shiny closet.
Good for me. I always knew I’d make it in the world through a series of complete accidents almost entirely divorced from my own actions and desires.
My thoughts are sarcastic. The beast in me is stirring again. She settled last night under Rex’s hand, but this morning she is rested and ready to once more terrorize a small village.
“Get up and shower, please, madam,” he says. “You may be accustomed to doing as you please all day, but here in the pack, we need to be certain places at certain times.”
“Where am I supposed to be?”
“Up,” he says bluntly. “Are you going to take yourself to the bathroom, or am I going to have to take a horsewhip to you?”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“You have no idea what I would dare,” he says.
“What’s your name again? I forgot it. Because I didn’t think it would matter.” I’m being bitchy now, but technically so is he. Saying the room smells like a brothel is rude as hell.
“My name is Fescue, but you can address me as sir,” he says.
“The fuck I will.”
“You absolutely will. I know your type. Wild. Disrespectful. You will call me sir.”
I sit up, keeping the sheet wrapped modestly around me. I don’t get the impression this man is lecherous, but I am keeping myself in check. The sitting up makes my ass hurt like hell, but he doesn’t need to know that.
“I think I outrank you, bud.”
He turns to give me the full benefit of his most dour stare. “I can assure you, young lady. You have no rank in this pack at all. I want to make that very clear. Fate may have decreed you to be the alpha’s mate, but there are other things that matter here.”
“Like what? Vague things?”
“Get up,” he says. “Have a shower.”
“Get the hell out of my room.”
“It’s not your room,” he tuts. “Would you like me to call Mister Regent? I can have him come out of his meeting to handle you. I am sure he would be in the sort of mood that would result in you being handled.”
That gets my attention. I don’t know if Rex would punish me again, but I can guess that he wouldn’t like being pulled out of his meeting over something like this. There is a chance he would spank me, and if that happened I’d fucking lose my shit.
Instead of dealing with any of that theoretical fuckery, I wrap the sheet around me.
“I am going to have a shower,” I say.
“Good.”
I go and shower, and in the process almost forget that I am annoyed right now. The shower is amazing, high pressure from all angles in a tiled enclosure that has one of those fancy one-way windows that looks out into the forest.
It feels good to be clean, though I have nothing clean to put on. I end up padding out into the bedroom, hoping the uptight guy in a suit is gone.
He is not.
He has laid out several heinous outfits on the bed, each one more grievous than the last. They are fifty shades of beige, with some white thrown in.
“What is this? Clothing for a couch saleswoman?”
The man gives me a scandalized look.
“I’m going to need your name,” I say, though of course I already know it because we’ve been introduced and he already repeated it once, but I can tell it annoys him to be asked. “So I can tell Rex why I suddenly look like the back of a woman’s clothing catalog from 1993.”
“Fescue,” he says. “I believe I already gave you my name. I also told you to call me sir.”
“Oh. Right, sorry. Do you have anything that doesn’t look like I’m about to try to open a checking account in 1984?”
“I do not appreciate your attitude,” he says, turning away from me so I don’t see the slight curl of the side of his mouth. I got him. Ha.
“I don’t appreciate your attempt to convert me from a twenty-something woman to a dowager countess in a period drama.”
“Alright,” he says. “That is enough, Miss Love.”
“These clothes are enough. Enough to…”
He sweeps them all up in his arms and marches out of the room.
* * *
Rex
We take a break from the meeting and head out for a bit. I decide to go and check on my mate, who was fast asleep when I got out of bed this morning. My day begins at five. I am sure hers does not start until much later.
Fescue is leaving our room with an armful of clothing. He looks more perturbed than usual.
“How is she doing, Fescue?”
“She is entirely impossible, sir,” he says. “She is opinionated, rude, and outright disobedient… I believe you have met your match.”
I smirk to myself as I go into the bedroom.
She is there, in a towel. She turns to me with a sassy look on her face. “Oh, it’s you,” she says.
“Are you disappointed?” I smile. “Hoping for another round with Fescue?”
“No,” she says, though her expression says yes.
“I wanted to see how you were,” I say, reaching for her and drawing her into my arms. “Last night was intense.”
“Yes. It was,” she mumbles into my chest. I run my hand down her back in a soothing caress and tap her ass gently. I feel her wince. She’s tender. A small smile passes over my lips. I am glad about that. She needed to be punished. She seems settled today.
“You were good for me,” I murmur in her ear, rubbing her ass gently over the towel.
“I had no choice,” she mumbles back. “You made me be good.”
“I did, didn’t I.” I smile down at her. “And you are going to be good for me today. Keep out of trouble while I have meetings, go and get the orientation tour with your friends, and I will join you after work.”
I don’t get to hear her response to my request for her to be good, because Fescue is already back.
“I have something you might find more acceptable to wear,” he says. “I trust it is colorful enough.”
He has brought in a pink jumpsuit that last saw the outside of the pack closet sometime in the ‘80s. Her eyes widen, and then she grins broadly.
“That is so cool!”
“Yes. I thought you might like it,” Fescue says. “I have a pair of crisp white trainers to go along with it.”
“I love it,” she says. “It’s so cute.”
Fescue turns away so he can hide the roll of his eyes from her. I catch his eye and nod to him, a silent appreciation for finding something she will like wearing.
“It’s got teal stripes,” she grins. “Oh, my god, it’s so cute. We could never make things like this now. I’m going to get changed.”
She rushes off with the suit under her arm, heading for the bathroom.
“You said you were in meetings all day, sir?”
“Yes,” I confirm.
“She’s going to have the house torn apart by then.”
“See that she does not.”
“Sir, I am many things, but one of them is not a babysitter for spoiled young mates.”
“Do it for me, as a favor, would you, Fescue? I have to attend to several important meetings today, and she likes you.”
“How can you tell?”
“How can you not?”
He looks faintly annoyed by my vagueness, but he nods his head. “Very well, sir,” he says with a resigned sigh that almost remains internal.
“Look at this!” Nicky comes out of the bathroom wearing the jumpsuit. It’s very retro and quite cute. I think she would look good in anything, and even better out of it.
“Do you like it?” She does a little spin and an aerobics style kick.
“Tonight you will be dressing formally,” Fescue says. “I will allow this nonsense in the interim.”
“He can’t tell me what to do,” she says, looking at me. “Can he?”
“When it comes to sartorial matters, Fescue has full rein,” I inform her. “He has for a very long time, and will for a very long time to come.”
She looks at me, then at Fescue, then back at me. It is hard to take her seriously when she’s choosing to look like she’s between brunch and aerobics, but she is my mate.
“I want more suits like these for my friends,” she says. “Tell me you have jackets in the teal and pink.”
“Come with me,” Fescue says. “We will collect your pack and find something appropriate for all of you to wear.”
“Okay,” she says. “I’m in. Because I want to see the wardrobe.”